With firefighters busy tamping out the nearby blaze, viewers on their way to work stopped what they were doing and jumped into action.

In a mere 20 minutes, several people who had seen Silva’s posts or had been following the live coverage of the trapped horse on TV arrived at the scene, offering their assistance — and it made all the difference.

The disparate group quickly pooled their skills to make the horse more comfortable, and then tried to free him.

“A veterinarian tranquilized the horse, others began moving furniture out of a garage and LA County fire freed up a small crew to help with the rescue,” Silva wrote on Instagram. “They all tore down the wall to free the animal.”